


Reshuffle

by Ramasi



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1253275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramasi/pseuds/Ramasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Margaret and Emma don't leave Storybrooke immediately after the curse is broken, and thus have time for some nice and uncomfortable conversations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reshuffle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mammothluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/gifts).



Small things. One day she will bake her own bread (lovely, if over-salted), another day bring home freshly slaughtered meat (not so much). She buys pots to grow herbs in, does small changes to the apartment, a piece of cloth here, a picture moved to another wall, talks about repainting the living room; nothing, to Emma, that hints to any sort of deep personality change. She plans her classes, and changes light-bulbs, and looks at her in that way she has, a little desperate and full of faith and love, mouth half-open just so.

She moves and talks with a strange, foreign briskness sometimes, a deep confidence; but whenever Emma thinks she can isolate those changes, there are those exact same familiar movements, different and not, a hand-gesture, a way of tilting her head.

Right now, sitting by their kitchen table, Snow White is stitching up a tear in a shirt, something Mary Margaret had meant to do and always put off. Emma is watching her from by the counter, filling the coffee machine unnecessary slowly. David and Henry are out together, they got along from the first moment on; they have a ceasefire with Regina, for now, for Henry's sake. There's Gold to consider, and August's disappearance, and the whole future of this town, but Emma knows that those things aren't why she's jittery, though they certainly don't help.

She stays by the machine as long as possible, before getting out a cup and turning.

"You want some?"

Mary Margaret looks up; Emma finds there's something vague to her gaze, and she nods so absently that she isn't sure her mother knows what she's agreeing to. Only when Emma's about to return to her position by the counter, at a safe distance, and Mary Margaret grabs her sleeve to stop her does she realise that she must have been paying attention after all.

"What's wrong?"

Her voice is gentle; nothing overtly demanding in it, and Emma finds herself stopping right away, turning to look down at her mother. Snow, she supposes, is _made_ for motherhood, all that patience, gentle assuredness, and whatever else it is that Emma herself lacks. But Emma can't shake off the knowledge that she's _younger_ than her, nor the sort of protectiveness that still makes her itch, against all evidence, to caution her about David Nolan (and now you're married and moved in together, isn't that moving a bit fast?).

She shakes her head and doesn't answer, but sits down next to her mother, hands around her own cup.

"Emma." It's the timidity that makes Emma look back up from her cup, a bit ashamed. "You know you can talk to me?"

"Of course," she says, not very convincingly; perhaps, eventually, she will be able to; but right now, she still feels to full of unfocused, unfair anger.

"Then tell me. You've been on edge ever since you broke the curse." She pauses. "Is it Regina?"

Emma isn't sure that's actually what Mary Margaret thinks; but perhaps she's being perceptive in a roundabout way; in some way, it's always Regina.

"It's just – " She _believes_ now, and her world has been turned upside down; but – "For you – for all of you – it's like a switch's been flipped. And now you remember. But for me, nothing's changed." Snow gives no immediate answer. "You're suddenly another person, and you're my mother, but you're still –" She stops. "It'll take me some time to adjust. Can we talk about it later?"

She says the last bit a little more forcefully than she meant to; it seems to drag a faint hint of severity from her mother:

"About what?"

"You?" Emma reflects back. She sips her coffee; the practicalities they're through with, at least the part they _want_ to discuss; right now, they're living and they're waiting: the Blue Fairy is working on a cure for the memory loss; and it might be that Gold is trying to break the barrier. They all seem oddly complacent about it; Emma herself isn't sure how well she would deal, if not for Henry. She's glad for all that she's gained, but she doesn't like being locked in, and she doesn't like suspense. Mary Margaret doesn't interrupt her. "If you could leave Storybrooke, where would you go?"

What she'd really like to ask is whether she would return to Fairytale Land if she could; but that's one of _those_ questions. Emma's not sure she would even have thought of it herself; Henry is the one who brought it up.

"I'm not sure. I remember Boston..." She looks down, brow creasing in confusion. Emma knows why: Mary Margaret remembers Boson in 2002, and she remembers Boston 1981, or at least she remembers remembering. She also remember never, in her whole life, having left this very town. There might be other locations she's never seen that she would recognise; they'd have to ask Regina, but they're not on terms as good as that. "What I'd like," Mary Margaret goes on, smiling up, "is to see places where you've been. Where you grew up. Everything."

"Yeah – most of them aren't really tourist sites," Emma says, smiling back; her heart is beating faster; there are so many things about her past her mother doesn't know, and she's worried; but she'll be fine, she thinks.

"I don't think that will be a problem."

"I'll take you to New York," Emma promises.


End file.
